Heritage-led rural gentrification and the heritage–village relationship: The case of Badaling Town in China

Rural areas are rich in natural and cultural heritage and continuously attract new settlers and tourists worldwide. With heritage management and tourism development, rural gentrification in these areas has changed the social structure and appearance of specific villages. Heritage-led rural gentrification has remained largely unexplored. To understand the heritage–village relationship in heritage-led rural gentrification areas, this paper proposes an analytical framework for evaluating their relationship and constructs a set of quantitative evaluation indicators from spatial, socio-economic, and cultural dimensions, which is applied to the Badaling section of the Great Wall in China. This study quantifies the degree of correlation between the 15 villages and heritage. The findings indicate that the relationship between heritage and adjacent villages is influenced by many factors, including the distance between villages and the Great Wall, the mature scenic area, transportation conditions, online effects of social media, self-development ability, and state power. Although the spatial relationship is determined by historical factors that are currently unchangeable, the socio-economic and cultural relationships are more influenced by villages’ current development conditions. This study enhances the understanding of heritage–village relationship in heritage-led rural gentrification areas, which is helpful for understanding the synergy between heritage and rural communities worldwide.